Blue flowers blue walls

This past weekend was crazy. Friday it seemed we were all moving like sloths and harvesting like turtles. Just not a day with a clip to it. Mentally not with it either. We didn't even get around to harvesting everything. I had a big wedding to arrange Sat. afternoon and Sunday, so perhaps I was conserving energy? who knows. It was down to the wire getting it all arranged. I only had time to take a few shots of the bridal bouquet as we rushed out the door (even though I wanted to parade it around the neighborhood shouting it's glory I was so proud of it). So much for adding to the portfolio.

We had our interior walls painted on Friday, all but the bathrooms. A few great choices and a couple complete bombs. John Deere tractor green is just not very attractive on a wall. It makes me want to hurl whenever I look at it. I knew before it went on it was a bad choice for us (we have a kubota for pete's sake!), but I thought, just maybe.....and then our bedroom. Bouyant blue. Think baby boy blue amped up on speed. When I first saw it I couldn't believe how bright it was. It was the lightest color on the swath of blues it was on, but oh no. We're trying to decide if we can live with it or not. Definitely not the green, but maybe the blue. So it's back to the color charts for us which is kind of like a mild form of torture. Too much pressure to have the right colors that work. Too many choices. Too many more choices and I could quite possibly experience internal combustion.

What do I really want to be doing, you ask? I want to be lounging like this lady, perhaps without the shoes, next to a waterfall, eating raspberries and looking at a sea of flowers I don't have to cut or figure out how to sell. Speaking of Eden, we saw the biggest black snake any of us has ever seen on the farm on Friday. HUGE!!! ENORMOUS!!! I was walking back a bucket of cuts and there it lay, soaking up the rays and thinking about how fat and healthy and happy it was til' it noticed me staring at it. We're talking four inch diameter, six feet long beast. It was so beautiful. I can't believe I didn't have my camera on me. We marveled at it's grace and slithering ways for a while, and then it was back to work.

If you don't know now you know

Kale Chips. The bombdiggity. The gooddittybittybombshell. Do people still say that, 'that is the bomb'???.....of course they don't. I sometimes live in a time warp. You're the bomb. Did you know that? You're coldbusted too. Dag cuz, for real though.

Seriously, if you haven't tried these, YOU MUST. I think they should serve them hot in bars cause the salt pairs beautifully with a good beer and they are so much healthier than fries or wings. Tuscan kale seems to work the best, but the red russian works too. We haven't tried the good ol' winterbor. Bet it works though. Set oven to 400, wash and de-stem kale, coat with olive oil and sprinkle with some coarse salt, and lay out on a baking pan. Keep an eye on them once they go in the oven, they cook really fast. Your looking for a crispness, but not all brown. Good luck and godspeed.
Last week for batchelor buttons. We have a wedding this weekend that I'm excited about. I got a big beautiful bucket of whites from Peregrine Farm, a local favorite for flowers (and when I say big and beautiful, I mean whoa, there isn't much else as heavenly as a big bucket of whites), and I hit up a neighbor two houses down for some blue hydrangeas. A lovely woman who let me trade her some veggies. So I'm all set, I just need to conjure up my arranging genie.

Last week for sugar snaps. Not the last week for summer squash. They are officially out of control.

Year to date

We've come a long way.

May 15th Market

Another big berry market. Looks like after the washout yesterday that could be it on the berries. Customers were all about some radicchio---rewind to my first season at market with a basket full of nice heads of radicchio and they just sat on the table. I might have sold one or two heads. We've come a long way. The sugar snaps and snow peas are coming in heavy this week.....get em' while you can, it's such a short season for them!

You are beginning to feel sleeeeepppppyyy

I have slept more these past three days than I have been awake. Three to four hour naps don't phase me. 10-12 hours of sleep at night don't phase me either. I'll take it when I can get it. We have had a washout at the farm. I bet we got 6-8 inches yesterday. We went to the farm and flowers were all over the ground, three inch deep puddles were everywhere, and I tried hard to pull myself together. We desperately needed the rain.....it's just hard to see the nicest campanula I've ever grown drowning on the ground. So I slept. We'll deal with the aftermath today.

Stuart's brother Ransom and his wife Lauren came to visit this past week. You can see them here worshipping the Sungold deity. I wish I could've gotten the whole ritual dance on video. They were fantastic to have around.....not many siblings (none of mine) are willing to help you pick strawberries for four hours on hands and knees. Thanks you two, we loved seeing you!
Other news----our septic system is in and our house site has been graded. They put down some really nice topsoil around the house, so it looks like whatever landscaping we do the plants should be happy.
We're so close to being done with the exterior. Maybe two-three more full days and it'll be done? We'll have to have an exterior-being-done celebration.

Dahlias

They're beginning to get eaten by grasshoppers, so I'm not sure how long we'll have them. The grasshoppers just munch away on the blooms; i find them half open, half eaten, curse the skies, and continue about my day. we need to get a shade cloth for the greenhouse.

Mother's Day Market

With a couple able and extremely competent helpers we were able to handle the craziness of Mother's Day market. Thank you Ben and Gerard!!!

New goods

Our peony plants have finally reached the stage of solid production. We are going to order maybe 100 more plants this fall because, really, is there a better present for mother's day? I wish red charms were cheaper!!! We'll see what we can put together. We sold just a few at market yesterday, but most were held for my mother, Stuart's mother, and other awesome women in our lives. A couple other items we are so glad to see......'rip city' dahlia. Looks a lot like 'Edinburgh', which we'll also have bloom soon. and CAULIFLOWER!!! Not the easiest thing in the world to grow so we are so happy to have some decent sized ones to share at market and with our CSA members.

Fun wildlife

Anyone know what on earth the first picture is? I spotted it and several others just hanging from a cedar tree and it's about two inches in diameter. The orange medusa hairs are soft like mushrooms, so I'm guessing it's a type of fungus? I love it when this world presents such alien yet beautiful organisms. Gives me just a moment to feel like a speck of dust and as large as the sky at the same time.